Every Knack song starts off with a bang. “Let Me Out”. “Pop is Dead”.
So, why does the final Fieger/Averre album start off sounding like a rejected track from a Squeeze album?
Sure the song picks up after a bit, but it’s lazy, beachcomber atitude and dumb lyrics make me wonder why they even bothered.
Fieger is older. And his particular brand of rock is driven by adolescent frustration. He’s never once suggested he could be an elder statesman, all his songs are basically love songs. In fact, it doesn’t seem like much of a stretch to think that he would have been a much in demand songwriter during the 50s. The Brill Building would have loved him.
But, in 2001, that kind of music is basically niche at best. The Knack of that era would be The Strokes (and even they would burn out after 2 albums).
They guys try to address their older status with songs like “Disillusioned Town”, but, it doesn’t really get you there, save as a piece of nostalgic remembrance. The same with “Girl I Never Lied to You”, which, to me is the weirdest song on the album. It sounds nothing like a Knack song and that’s because it’s written by Monty Byron and John Corey the latter of whom was Fieger’s first songwriting partner. They started the band, Sky, together. But, remembrance is sort of the theme of the record now, isn’t it? They are very old and very done and the music of their youth, when they were relevant, has passed them by comepletely.
I don’t know why the band didn’t open with the title track, which is a fairly percussive piece (all the best Knack songs are, you know.) and snarky while at the same time defensive as hell. All the stuff I expect from Fieger. And I’m not sure why the world needed a redux of “One Day at a Time”, but I actually prefer this version. And I can totally hear Robbie Rist or Lowen/Navarro covering it.
By the time you get deep into the album, and you realize that, well, this isn’t the Knack of old, it’s a collection of songs by a group of guys who make music and they aren’t half bad, the album sort of grows. I am hardpressed to find a truly awful track in here, “Dance of Romance” being the exception.. Sure, much of it could’ve been written in the guys’ sleep. But, you know what? I wish i could do that. At the time this record came out, Fieger was pushing 50 and he’d been recording music for 30 years. (His first band, Sky, will eventually be a part of this listening post, they have two albums that I was able to get). If he doesn’t sound like he did 23 years earlier, isn’t that to be expected?
In its own way, Normal as the Next Guy is the perfect Coda to The Knack. It’s not really a classic Knack album, and they know it. It’s a swan song of sorts, although I’m not sure Fieger knew he’d be dead in 6 years. It’s an album by guys who don’t need to make it. They made it. They get fat royalty checks from their big, era defining hit, “My Sharona”. They just like to make music.
And that’s the most important thing.
Grade: B+ (While the rating is higher then for Zoom, I do not consider this a Knack album proper. It’s a Coda. Outside of their oeuvre in a way.)
ASide: Normal as the Next Guy, It’s Not Me, Reason to Live
BlindSide: Spiritual Pursuit, One Day at a Time, Seven Days of Heaven, A World of My Own
DownSide: Dance of Romance
